Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry Read Free Book Online

as decadent and out of
the question for him as if she’d asked him to beat her bloody and
watch her sleep with ten different men.
    At the time he hadn’t stopped to question why, but
Elizabeth had, as she’d so eloquently demonstrated when she gently
but firmly severed the ties that bound them three days ago.
    Let’s call a spade a spade here.
For better or for worse, I’m fixed in your mind as the
granddaughter of the man you respect more than any other person in
the world. You said it yourself—you owe him everything. When you
look at me, you see the granddaughter of Edward Whittaker first and
me second.
    As much as he wanted to repudiate her view of their
relationship, her words had resonated within him.
    Twenty years ago, he’d made a vow to himself that he
would not repeat his parents’ mistakes. He had been determined to
make it out of the cycle of poverty and ignorance into which he’d
been born. He’d stuck with school when his peers had dropped out.
He’d ignored the lures of drugs and drink and girls, even though
the council estate had been rife with distractions and temptations
and even though his mother had been baffled by his determination to
better himself.
    He hadn’t been the brightest kid in his class, but
he’d worked his ass off, studying and cramming until he’d aced his
A Levels. When he’d first walked into Wren Library at Trinity
College, he’d looked around and known without a doubt that he was
the roughest, poorest kid in the building. He’d earned himself a
partial scholarship to cover his tuition but missed out on a
Government grant for living expenses, so he’d worked two jobs as
well as doing everything in his power to make himself an attractive
prospect for a future employer. He’d listened to the presenters on
the BBC and practiced until he’d smoothed out his rough North
London accent, and he’d watched where the more well-heeled of his
peers shopped and parroted them. In short, he had reinvented
himself—as much as a man could when he was on the outside looking
in. It had taken a long-established insider like Edward Whittaker
taking an interest in him to complete his transformation. Under
Edward’s guidance he’d shed the last of his rough edges and gained
the polish that allowed him to pass as someone born and bred to
success. To this day he didn’t know why the older man had taken an
interest in him—perhaps because he’d never had a son of his own,
just as Martin had never had a father—but whatever his motivation,
Edward had made his current life possible, and the prospect of
becoming part of the old man’s family through marrying Elizabeth
had held enormous appeal for him, as had Elizabeth herself.
    She was a million miles from the girls he’d grown up
with. She always knew the right thing to say or do. She was
beautiful, refined, elegant. Her love had been the final seal on
his success.
    And it had all been a house of cards, his facade
balanced precariously on Elizabeth’s.
    Sitting in his car, he stared bleakly out the
windshield.
    Elizabeth had had the courageto call bullshit on all
the pretense, but he’d been so invested, so desperate to belong
that he’d been prepared to play a part for the rest of his
life.
    You sad, pathetic, when-will-I-be-good-enough
bastard.
    For a moment he was gripped with the urge to start
the car and simply drive away from it all. The life he’d created
for himself. The career he’d so arduously built. The friends, the
clubs. He could drive and drive and drive until he was somewhere
else. And maybe he could start again. Do it differently this
time.
    After a long beat, he started his car and drove home.
The truth was, he’d fought too hard and too long to make this life.
Like it or not, it still meant too much to him. Maybe that made him
weak or tragic or grasping, but it was the truth.
    Now he just had to work out what to do with it.
     
    Violet blew onto her cupped hands. She was wearing
gloves, but it was dark and cold